Das Kleine Blatt (1927-1944) was a newspaper published in Vienna by the Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Aimed at the whole family, it also ran a comic strip for children: Bobby Bär became so popular that by 1933, there were 70 chapters of the Bobby Bär Club in Vienna.

The origins of Bobby Bär are unknown; a likely precursor, however, is the Bobby Bear strip in London’s Daily Herald (1919-1941). As Britain’s only working-class paper, the Herald was known to, and regularly cited by, the Austrian Social Democrat papers. The Austrian Bobby Bär greatly resembles his British counterpart: both wear checkered pants and are friends with a mouse and a rabbit. Likewise, both were the basis of socially-oriented children’s clubs.

The Austrian comic, however, was both more formally conservative and more radically political: while Bobby Bear turned to comedy in the 1930s, Bobby Bär faced down schoolmates bearing swastikas—at least until Das Kleine Blatt was politically neutralized in 1934. Thus, although the inspiration for Bobby Bär is in fact clear, the Austrian imitation outstripped the British original as a political statement.